Elephant facts

We've had four posts now about how elephants are endangered (click here and scroll down to see them - posts by Clara, Rozenn, Abi and Elie). So we've decided to try and do a little about it if possible.

The first step was to find out more about elephants, so we used the Internet to find out one thing each of us didn't know about elephants before:

• Baby elephants suck their trunks!
• An elephant drinks 7.5 litres of water at a time!
• Adult elephants show little elephants how to use their trunks!
• The adult African elephant’s trunk is 2 meters long – used for eating and drinking.
• Elephants can weigh up to 6 tonnes (6000 kg).
• The African elephant is the world’s largest land animal.
• An elephant is scared of a little mouse. (True??)
• Female elephants are called elephant cows.
• Elephants can use their tusks to dig for ground water.
• Only Asian elephants are trainable.
• There is a little elephant species that lives in Borneo and is less than 2.5m high!
• A baby elephant weighs from 200 – 250kg.
• Elephants have six sets of teeth. If they all fall out they die.
• Elephants are like chinchillas and lots of other animals that are hunted.
• They grow up to 5m high. They grow all their lives.
• Elephants’ ears are very large, and they use them to communicate with them. Flapping ears means either aggression or joy!
• Elephants are one of the most intelligent animals.
• People cut elephant tusks!